Suspected assassins of Governor Reichard Heydrich were driven by the Gestapo, the German state secret police, into the Church of Cyrilos Methodius in Prague, Czechoslovakia, on June 18, 1942. The SS raided the building. Shortly thereafter, the assassins and all of the suspects were shot dead.

A group of suspects in the assassination of Governor General Reichard Heydrich were driven by the Gestapo, the Nazi German military's state secret police, into the Church of Cyrilos Methodius in Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, on June 18, 1942. The SS (SS), under orders from Karl-Hermann Frank, raided the building. Shortly thereafter, the assassins and all of the suspects were shot dead. Later, the bodies were dragged out of the church into the open, surrounded and disrespected by the secret police and SS.

　In September 1939, Heydrich took control of the Nazi police department and transformed it into a powerful terror agency, the Reich Security Service (RSHA); on December 27, 1941, Heydrich was posted to the governorship of Prague; on December 15, he publicly executed resistance fighters with machine guns in the square beside the Prague Cathedral. Heydrich was dubbed the Butcher of Prague. He executed Czech Prime Minister Alois Elias on June 19, 1942.

　On May 27, 1942, at 10:32 a.m., an underground group in Prague blew up Heydrich's passenger car with a bomb belonging to Kubis. Gabczyk's Sten gun did not work. In the back of the truck, the wounded Heydrich was transported; on June 4 Heydrich died of infection from his wounds; eight assassins and resistance fighters were hiding in the crypt of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyrilos Methodios; on June 18 an SS combat unit raided the crypt. It was littered with bloodied corpses that had been shot and bodies that had committed suicide.

　Martial law was imposed throughout Czechoslovakia after Heydrich's assassination, and the Gestapo, in revenge against Czech citizens for Heydrich's assassination, mass arrested some 13,000 people, executing about 600 of them for illegal possession of weapons. The village of Lidice, northwest of Prague, was destroyed on June 10, when some 199 men and boys over the age of 15 were executed, and women were deported to the concentration camp at Ravensbrück; on June 24, the village of Rejaki was destroyed, and all 33 adult men and women were shot dead; on June 25, the village of Lidice was destroyed, and all 33 adults, men and women, were shot dead.